Neoclassical Economics Is Not Concerned with Markets and Competition Is Absent

When many post-Keynesians target neoclassical economics they presume to target the market system. This is curious: neoclassical economics is not concerned with markets. The neoclassical method of marginal analysis identifies the characteristics of an economically efficient outcome; it says nothing about how that outcome might be achieved. Although different sets of assumptions are categorised as competitive, monopolistic, and oligopolistic, close inspection reveals that no one is competing. The entrepreneurial function is either about to commence (disequilibrium) or completed (equilibrium). Entrepreneurial battle-plans for logistics, reconnaissance, communication and deployment are strangely absent.

--G.R. Steele, Keynes and Hayek: The Money Economy, Foundations of the Market Economy (London: Routledge, 2002), 166.